That’s a good idea: after carrying DOOM on a multitude of media – which is probably the most productive running gag in the retro gaming community – a programmer had the excellent idea to carry the game fromid Software onto... console!

But be careful, not just any console: the Atari ST. This 16-bit machine from the American giant has very limited technical characteristics, which did not facilitate the task of Jonas Eschenburg, the programmer behind this port.

The first version of the game only showed greyed tones, and Jonas had to publish an accelerated video as the game was running slowly during his first trials.

Through perseverance, he ended up sharing a second video that made the small world of retro gaming vibrate: DOOM turning in color (limited to 16 shades), with the following message:
«Goodbye grayscale: DOOM on the Atari ST, now in 16 colors with lots of dithering. Palette effects (screen turns red when damaged) are also supported.”

The dithering – or tramage in French – is a technique that allows you to simulate colors or brightness levels by distributing pixels in a specific way. It can give the illusion of thinner gradients, but also sometimes make the image a little blurry if it is misused.

It should be remembered that if the Atari ST was a high-performance machine in its time, running a pseudo-3D environment like that of DOOM at a smooth cadence is almost black magic – especially with such a small color palette.

For now, the programmer has specified that the game runs on a emulator:

"It runs much faster than an original 8 MHz machine. I am not yet at the point of implementing optimizations, but I have a lot of fun integrating the material (graphic, input) from the ST.”

"It runs in an emulator, with 14 MB and accelerated speed. I will start optimizing it once the basics are in place."

Jonas Eschenburg still has some work to do on this port. But let’s not forget that this is already a remarkable feat: turning the fundamental elements of such a demanding game on the architecture of the Atari ST – even in emulation – shows a considerable level of skill... and passion.